Ginny's Present
by Bri-Gils
Summary: There is no spell to reawaken the dead, even for a day. At least, not fully. It's just impossible. Of course, when dealing with Harry Potter, he has been known to break the impossible. And the Resurrection Stone isn't exactly a spell. Join People from the first and second war as they read a gift Harry left Ginny, and find out how the boy-who-lived defeated Lord Voldemort
1. PrologueA Place to Hide

**I do not own Harry Potter. **

* * *

There is no spell to reawaken the dead, even for a day. At least, not fully. It's just impossible. Of course, when dealing with Harry Potter, he has been known to break the impossible. And the Resurrection Stone isn't exactly a spell.

Twenty-eight days ago the stone was dropped in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, the location a mystery to humans. Bane, however, saw the stone as it fell from the boy's hand, and was not a human being. For twenty-eight days after, he visited the stone only to find it glowing brighter than it had the day before. Until May 30th, when it flashed brightly before disappearing completely. You see, no one was ever reawakened the dead before. But no one has ever been the Master of Death before, either.

* * *

That said master was now standing in the kitchen of the Burrow, facing his girlfriend. They were alone- the rest of the Weasleys were in the Garden with Hermione.

"Do you really have to go?" Ginny asked softly, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

"Gin-" Harry sighed, and lowered his forehead to touch hers. "Hermione has done so much for me in the past year. It's not right if I don't help her find her parents. They wouldn't even be in Australia if it weren't for me."

"You noble prat." Harry chuckled, before being interrupted by Ginny's lips meeting his. After breaking apart, she added, "When you get back… will you please tell me what happened in the forest?" Harry, Ron, and Hermione - not wanting to dwell on the past adventures of 1997/98- had not told anyone what they were doing while on the run.

Harry looked into her gold eyes, specked with small bits of green. Glancing out of the window, he now saw that Ron and Hermione were waiting for him so they could be on their way. "I left a present for you on your bed. I think it'll…. Answer some questions."

"I love you."

"I love you, too"

And with one last kiss, the Master of Death was gone again.

* * *

"A book?" The redheaded girl approached her bed cautiously. "Merlin, is Hermione rubbing off on him?"

The book was hardcover, yet it was missing its outside sleeve. It was quite thick- as thick as her History of Magic book- and the cover was green and yellow, will the title embodied in the side with red.

"Harry Potter and the De- Ahh!" Ginny yelped as a blinding light came out of nowhere, engulfing her and lifting the teenager's feet off the ground. When she landed, Ginny knew right away that she wasn't in her bedroom anymore.

"Ginny!" There were people everywhere, yet Ginny's name was heard above everyone else. Turning around, the redhead saw George jogging towards her with a smile spreading through his face.

"George? What's happening?!" Ginny asked, before realizing that the person wasn't George at all. This person had two ears. "Fred?!"

"FREDDIE!" Molly Weasley's scream could be heard from the left and soon enough Ginny's mum came into view and almost tackled the young man.

"Bloody hell, mum, I've missed you too." Fred's muffled voice could be heard from Molly's shoulder.

_How is he here? Where are we?_ Ginny couldn't help but wonder. Looking around, she saw other people whose bodies should have been feet below the ground. Ginny herself saw them get buried! There was Lavender Brown, giggling with the crying Parvati; Colin Creevey chatting with a teary Dennis; and-

"Sirius!" Ginny's yell broke up her family's reunion with Fred as they all turned to where Sirius Black- looking much healthier and younger than any of them had ever seen- stood laughing with a woman with red hair and a man who looked a lot .like Harry….

"Ginny!" Sirius yelled back and then beckoned the couple to follow him towards the large family. Molly, once again, beat everyone else to a hug.

"Dammit Sirius, I'm so sorry we fought!" Molly cried. Sirius had an amused look on his face as he removed the emotional woman from his body.

"It's okay, Molly. I was going pretty stir crazy from Dumbledore's orders. Where is that buffoon anyway?"

"Yeah, he should be here if there's dead people around." Charlie commented, now scanning the room- which Ginny suddenly realized was the Great Hall in Hogwarts.

"Dumbledore died!?" the man who looked like Harry asked in disbelief. Sirius also looked shocked.

"Er, aren't you supposed to see the stuff that's going on down here when you're up there?" Arthur asked, pointing towards the ceiling at the last part.

"Have you ever died, Arthur?"

"Well, no…."

"Where's Harry?" The redheaded woman asked the million dollar question.

"He's in Australia." Ginny answered. "I'm Ginny, by the way."

"Oh, I forgot introductions! My my, how rude of me. Weasleys, this is Lily and James Potter. Potters, this is Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, George, Fred, Ginny, and Ro- wait, you're not Ron!" Sirius stared at Percy.

Percy cleared his throat. "Erm, I'm Percy."

"Have you lot seen Moony?"

"He's probably with Tonks and Andromeda." George answered as the group ignored James Potter's bewildered, "How do they know who Moony is?"

"Why would he be with them?" Sirius wondered aloud.

Lily Potter eyed the book in Ginny's hands. "What book is that?"

Ginny looked down, surprised that she was still holding it. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

"Deathly Hallows!?" Three voiced responded, each speaker with a different expression on their face. Lily: one of confusion; James: a smug smile; and Dumbledore, who seemed to have appeared out of the ground: on of giddy excitement. It was quite odd seeing that look on his face.

"Yeah, Harry said it would answer my questions about what he did last year."

"What did he do?" Lily asked, now voicing motherly concern.

"Well, Mrs. Potter, I think we need to read to find out." Dumbledore's bright blue eyes twinkled. "May I?" He took the book from the teenager, raised his wand to his throat, and spoke in an now thunderous voice, "If everyone will please calm down and sit. We will be reading a book to inform us all of how the war was won."

"We won!?" Sirius spluttered as he, the Potters, and the Weasleys sat at the Gryffindor table. "How long did it take?"

"Three years." A new voice spoke as Remus Lupin sat down next across from Sirius, Teddy being cradled in his arms.

"Remus! Congrats!" Lily cooed at the baby boy, who was fast asleep. Sirius, however, was looking back and forth between Remus and Tonks, who were sitting pretty close to one another….

"Moony! We're family!"

"Would anyone like to read first?" Dumbledore interrupted not only theirs, but many other conversations, as well.

"I will." James offered, wanting to hear more about his own son, and slightly put out that he wasn't here.

**Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.**

**A Place to Hide.**

**Everything seemed fuzzy, slow. Harry and Hermione jumped to their feet and drew their wands.**

"What happened!?" Lily asked, not expecting trouble this early in the book.

"Well, if it's going to tell us things we don't know, then it probably starts after Bill and Fleur's wedding." Arthur stated, evidently thinking. "Kingsley warned us that Death Eaters were going to crash it… and that's the last time I remember seeing the trio."

**Many people were only just realizing that something strange had happened; heads were still turning toward the silver cat as it vanished. Silence spread outward in cold ripples from the place where the Patronus had landed. Then somebody screamed.**

**Harry and Hermione threw themselves into the panicking crowd. Guests were sprinting in all directions; many were Disapparating; the protective enchantments around the Burrow had broken.**

**"Ron!" Hermione cried. "Ron, where are you?"**

"Whose Ron?"

"Ron and Hermione are Harry's friends. They do everything together." Molly replied fondly.

**As they pushed their way across the dance floor, Harry saw cloaked and masked figures appearing in the crowd;**

Many who hadn't been there held their breath.

**then he saw Lupin and Tonks, their wands raised, and heard both of them shout, "Protego!", a cry that was echoed on all sides -**

**"Ron! Ron!" Hermione called, half sobbing as she and Harry were buffered by terrified guests: Harry seized her hand to make sure they weren't separated as a streak of light whizzed over their heads, whether a protective charm or something more sinister he did not know –**

**And then Ron was there. He caught hold of Hermione's free arm, and Harry felt her turn on the spot; sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon him; all he could feel was Hermione's hand as he was squeezed through space and time, away from the Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from Voldemort himself...**

"Thankfully, no." Bill sighed as his wife smiled at the memory of their wedding night. It had been so good up to that point….

**"Where are we?" said Ron's voice.**

**Harry opened his eyes. For a moment he thought they had not left the wedding after all; They still seemed to be surrounded by people.**

**"Tottenham Court Road," panted Hermione. "Walk, just walk, we need to find somewhere for you to change."**

"The muggle world?" Dean Thomas cursed himself. _Why didn't he think of that?_

**Harry did as she asked. They half walked, half ran up the wide dark street thronged with late-night revelers and lined with closed shops, stars twinkling above them. A double-decker bus rumbled by and a group of merry pub-goers ogled them as they passed; Harry and Ron were still wearing dress robes.**

**"Hermione, we haven't got anything to change into," Ron told her, as a young woman burst into raucous giggles at the sight of him.**

**Those who knew muggle fashion couldn't help but giggle along with the woman.**

**"Why didn't I make sure I had the Invisibility Cloak with me?" said Harry, inwardly cursing his own stupidity. "All last year I kept it on me and -"**

"Why did he carry it on him at all times?" Lily asked clearly concerned.

"You do realize that your son plays a major part it the war against Voldemort, right?" Remus asked his friend cautiously

**"It's okay, I've got the Cloak, I've got clothes for both of you," said Hermione, "Just try and act naturally until - this will do."**

"Where is she carrying all of that stuff?"

**She led them down a side street, then into the shelter of a shadowy alleyway.**

**"When you say you've got the Cloak, and clothes..." said Harry, frowning at Hermione, who was carrying nothing except her small beaded handbag, in which she was now rummaging.**

**"Yes, they're here," said Hermione, and to Harry and Ron's utter astonishment, she pulled out a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, some maroon socks, and finally the silvery Invisibility Cloak.**

"How the ruddy hell did all of that fit in a small bag!?"

**"How the ruddy hell -?"**

**"Undetectable Extension Charm,"**

**"Smart!" Flitwick exclaimed. "Why wasn't she a Ravenclaw?"**

**"Because she's on a mission to kill a dark wizard. That takes guts." McGonagall replied to her coworker.**

**said Hermione. "Tricky, but I think I've done it okay; anyway, I managed to fit everything we need in here." She gave the fragile-looking bag a little shake and it echoed like a cargo hold as a number of heavy objects rolled around inside it. "Oh, damn, that'll be the books," she said, peering into it, "and I had them all stacked by subject... Oh well... Harry, you'd better take the Invisibility Cloak. Ron, hurry up and change..."**

**"When did you do all this?" Harry asked as Ron stripped off his robes.**

**"I told you at the Burrow, I've had the essentials packed for days, you know, in case we needed to make a quick getaway. I packed your rucksack this morning, Harry, after you changed, and put it in here... I just had a feeling..."**

"Thank Merlin she did!" Slughorn gave a hearty laugh.

**"You're amazing, you are," said Ron, handing her his bundled-up robes.**

"It only took him 7 years to realize that."

**"Thank you," said Hermione, managing a small smile as she pushed the robes into the bag. "Please, Harry, get that Cloak on!"**

**Harry threw his Invisibility Cloak around his shoulders and pulled it up over his head, vanishing from sight. He was only just beginning to appreciate what had happened.**

**"The others - everybody at the wedding -"**

"You have to get yourself to safety, Harry." Many commented as though he were in the room.

**"We can't worry about that now," whispered Hermione. "It's you they're after, Harry, and we'll just put everyone in even more danger by going back."**

**"Why are they after him exactly?" Lily questioned.**

**Albus answered, "The Prophecy was right. On the night you died, Harry defeated Lord Voldemort. Now that Voldemort has returned, he wants to kill Harry before Harry stops him again."**

**"How did he return? How are you sure he won't return again?"**

**Dumbledore sighed, and motioned for James to keep on reading. He really hoped that Severus told Harry…..**

**"She's right," said Ron, who seemed to know that Harry was about to argue, even if he could not see his face. "Most of the Order was there, they'll look after everyone."**

"Yes, we did."

**Harry nodded, then remembered that they could not see him, and said, "Yeah." But he thought of Ginny, and fear bubbled like acid in his stomach.**

**"Oi! Since when did Potter have the hots for you!?" Fred turned to look at his little sister.**

**"Since they've spent every waking moment this past month glued to each other's hips." George rolled his eyes, and caught the eye of his former classmate, Angelina Johnson. ****_Merlin, I'd like to be glued to her hip._**

**"Come on, I think we ought to keep moving," said Hermione.**

Lupin, as a former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, nodded in agreement.

**They moved back up the side street and onto the main road again, where a group of men on the opposite side was singing and weaving across the pavement.**

**"Just as a matter of interest, why Tottenham Court Road?" Ron asked Hermione.**

**"I've no idea, it just popped into my head, but I'm sure we're safer out in the Muggle world, it's not where they'll expect us to be."**

**"True," said Ron, looking around, "but don't you feel a bit - exposed?"**

"The muggle world is safer; it's harder to find you. Right sir?" Cho Chang replied to the book-Ron, and now addressed Dumbledore.

"I'm afraid, Miss Chang, that I know just as much about what is safe in their situation as you do."

Many people stared at the former headmaster, affronted.

"You mean to tell me," Molly Weasley growled, "that you sent three _teenagers_ on a task that even you weren't sure how to complete?"

James, wanting to spare the old man from getting torn to shreds, continued reading.

**"Where else is there?" asked Hermione, cringing as the men on the other side of the road started wolf-whistling at her. "We can hardly book rooms at the Leaky Cauldron, can we? And Grimmauld Place is out if Snape can get in there... I suppose we could try my parents' home, though I think there's a chance they might check there... Oh, I wish they'd shut up!"**

**"Who?"**

**"All right, darling?" the drunkest of the men on the other pavement was yelling. "Fancy a drink? Ditch ginger and come and have a pint!"**

**"Let's sit down somewhere," Hermione said hastily as Ron opened his mouth to shout back across the road.**

**A few people chuckled.**

** "Look, this will do, in here!"**

**It was a small and shabby all-night cafe. A light layer of grease lay on all the Formica-topped tables, but it was at least empty. Harry slipped into a booth first and Ron sat next to him opposite Hermione, who had her back to the entrance and did not like it: She glanced over her shoulder so frequently she appeared to have a twitch. Harry did not like being stationary; walking had given the illusion that they had a goal. Beneath the Cloak he could feel the last vestiges of Polyjuice leaving him, his hands returning to their usual length and shape. He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and put them on again.**

_"Polyjuice potion?"_

_"He was disguised for the wedding."_

**After a minute or two, Ron said, "You know, we're not far from the Leaky Cauldron here, it's only in Charing Cross -"**

**"Ronald!" Molly scoffed. "You have to stay safe!"**

**"Ron, we can't!" said Hermione at once.**

**"Not to stay there, but to find out what's going on!"**

**"We know what's going on! Voldemort's taken over the Ministry, what else do we need to know?"**

"They're just going to be in more danger if they go there." Ted Tonks said, looking flabbergasted. Remus, on the other hand grew pale.

"What is it, Remy?" Tonks asked, stroking his arm.

"Dora… they said the name."

Tonks, now realizing what is going to happen, replied: "Fuck."

**"Okay, okay, it was just an idea!"**

**They relapsed into a prickly silence. The gum-chewing waitress shuffled over and Hermione ordered two cappuccinos: As Harry was invisible, it would have looked odd to order him one. A pair of burly workmen entered the cafe and squeezed into the next booth. Hermione dropped her voice to a whisper.**

**"I say we find a quiet place to Disapparate and head for the countryside. Once we're there, we could send a message to the Order."**

**"Good- no, Great idea!" A girl who used to belong to Ravenclaw sounded enthusiastic.**

**Molly frowned. "But we never got a patronus."**

**"Well, maybe mine reached them first." Arthur said, trying to comfort his wife. "I did tell them not to contact us."**

**"Can you do that talking Patronus thing, then?" asked Ron.**

**"I've been practicing and I think so," said Hermione.**

"She can do a patronus!?" James looked astounded. "Most adults can't even produce one!"

"Harry taught us all how to do one in his 5th year." Fred grinned.

"Dumbledore's Army!" cheers could be heard from all the students that were a part of it, while the adults all looked rather confused.

Ginny smirked at her mother, "A teenager's gang, right mum?"

**"Well, as long as it doesn't get them into trouble, though they might've been arrested already. God, that's revolting," Ron added after one sip of the foamy, grayish coffee. The waitress had heard; **

**"Well, our ickle Ronniekins has always been a charmer!"**

**she shot Ron a nasty look as she shuffled off to take the new customers' orders. The larger of the two workmen, who was blond and quite huge, now that Harry came to look at him, waved her away. She stared, affronted.**

"Why go in there if you're not getting anything?" A girl the year below Ginny wondered. Molly, on the other hand, was getting a sinking feeling in her gut.

**"Let's get going, then, I don't want to drink this muck," said Ron. "Hermione, have you got Muggle money to pay for this?"**

**"Yes, I took out all my Building Society savings before I came to the Burrow.**

**"Smart girl." James commented to no one in particular.**

**"If it weren't for Hermione, Ron and Harry wouldn't of made it past 1****st**** year." Fred snorted.**

** I'll bet all the change is at the bottom," sighed Hermione, reaching for her beaded bag.**

**The two workmen made identical movements, and Harry mirrored them without conscious thought: All three of them drew their wands.**

Everyone gasped, knowing what was to come. Many people who died before the second war were surprised by Harry's reflexes.

**Ron, a few seconds late in realizing what was going on, lunged across the table, pushing Hermione sideways onto her bench. The force of the Death Eaters' spells shattered the tiled wall where Ron's head had just been, as Harry, still invisible, yelled, "Stupefy!"**

**The great blond Death Eater was hit in the face by a jet of red light: He slumped sideways, unconscious. His companion, unable to see who had cast the spell, fired another at Ron: Shining black ropes flew from his wand-tip and bound Ron head to foot - the waitress screamed and ran for the door - Harry sent another Stunning Spell at the Death Eater with the twisted face who had tied up Ron, but the spell missed, rebounded on the window, and hit the waitress, who collapsed in front of the door**

"At least she didn't escape." Moody commented, not seeming phased by the attack.

"Always the optimist, you are." Tonks rolled her eyes.

"Speaking like Yoda, you are trying to." The old man replied with a crooked grin.

**"Expulso!" bellowed the Death Eater, and the table behind which Harry was standing blew up: The force of the explosion slammed him into the wall and he felt his wand leave his hand as the Cloak slipped off him.**

**"Petrificus Totalus!" screamed Hermione from out of sight, and the Death Eater fell forward like a statue to land with a crunching thud on the mess of broken china, table, and coffee. Hermione crawled out from underneath the bench, shaking bits of glass ashtray out of her hair and trembling all over.**

Ginny let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

**"D-diffindo," she said, pointing her wand at Ron, who roared in pain as she slashed open the knee of his jeans, leaving a deep cut. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Ron, my hand's shaking! Diffindo!"**

**The severed ropes fell away. Ron got to his feet, shaking his arms to regain feeling in them. Harry picked up his wand and climbed over all the debris to where the large blond Death Eater was sprawled across the bench.**

**"I should've recognized him, he was there the night Dumbledore died," he said. He turned over the darker Death Eater with his foot; the man's eyes moved rapidly between Harry, Ron and Hermione.**

"Harry was there…" Sirius gasped quietly, and couldn't help but notice that James and Lily both paled.

**"That's Dolohov," said Ron. "I recognize him from the old wanted posters. I think the big one's Thorfinn Rowle."**

"Sir, who killed you?" A woman who was in the first order- Verowen Tuffs- asked Dumbledore.

Dumbledore glanced at his hand, which was not black anymore. "Severus Snape was the one who fired the killing curse."

Lily felt as though she was going to cry. _Really Sev?_ She thought, _I can't believe I used to trust you…_

**"Never mind what they're called!" said Hermione a little hysterically. "How did they find us? What are we going to do?"**

"She has got to calm down." A man who died in the first war commented, and people murmured in agreement.

**Somehow her panic seemed to clear Harry's head.**

Lily and James beamed, both thinking the same thing. _He's a leader_.

**"Lock the door," he told her, "and Ron, turn out the lights."**

**He looked down at the paralyzed Dolohov, thinking fast as the lock clicked and Ron used the Deluminator to plunge the cafe into darkness. Harry could hear the men who had jeered at Hermione earlier, yelling at another girl in the distance.**

"Damn drunks…" Lily mumbled through pursed lips. She could never stand when people used to hit on her during the nights she would spend in London.

**"What are we going to do with them?" Ron whispered to Harry through the dark; then, even more quietly, "Kill them? They'd kill us. They had a good go just now."**

**Hermione shuddered and took a step backward. Harry shook his head.**

**"We just need to wipe their memories," said Harry. "It's better like that, it'll throw them off the scent. If we killed them it'd be obvious we were here."**

"Good work, Potter" Kingsley praised, keeping a mental note to ask Harry about being an auror once the boy got back from his trip.

**"You're the boss," said Ron, sounding profoundly relieved. "But I've never down a Memory Charm."**

"You're the boss?" James said sounding amused.

"They're used to Harry doing insane things that make sense in the end." Remus informed him.

**"Nor have I," said Hermione, "but I know the theory."**

"Deed she not weepe 'her pareents me'mories?" Fluer questioned.

"She modified them." Ginny told her sister-in-law. She then added, for those who did not know, "That's why they're in Australia. To find Hermione's parents."

**She took a deep, calming breath, then pointed her wand at Dolohov's forehead and said, "Obliviate."**

**At once, Dolohov's eyes became unfocused and dreamy.**

Dumbledore smiled at the former students success, and couldn't help but feel assured that they would complete the task handed to them.

**"Brilliant!" said Harry, clapping her on the back. "Take care of the other one and the waitress while Ron and I clear up."**

**"Clear up?" said Ron, looking around at the partly destroyed cafe. "Why?"**

Neville, Seamus, and Dean snorted at their old roommate.

**"Don't you think they might wonder what's happened if they wake up and find themselves in a place that looks like it's just been bombed?"**

**"Thank Merlin she has sense…" Flitwick whispered to McGonagall, who suddenly felt a rush of pride for the Gryffindor.**

**"Oh right, yeah..."**

**Ron struggled for a moment before managing to extract his wand from his pocket.**

**"Well, Ronald, that's a weird way to pull out your d*ck, but whatever works for you and Hermione…" George addressed the book in a serious matter, causing laughter to erupt around him. Molly slapped Arthur's shoulder when she discovered he was laughing, too.**

**"So they finally got together then?" Remus asked as Tonks took Teddy from his arms.**

**"They couldn't keep their bloody hands off of each other this past month!" Bill laughed. "I can only imagine how annoyed they are that Harry went to Australia with them…"**

**"It's no wonder I can't get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they're tight."**

**"Oh, I'm so sorry," hissed Hermione, and as she dragged the waitress out of sight of the windows, Harry heard her mutter a suggestion as to where Ron could stick his wand instead.**

The Great Hall broke into laughter; even McGonagall chuckled to herself.

**Once the cafe was restored to its previous condition, they heaved the Death Eaters back into their booth and propped them up facing each other. "But how did they find us?" Hermione asked, looking from one inert man to the other. "How did they know where we were?"**

**_The Taboo!_**** Many people thought themselves.**

**She turned to Harry.**

**"You - you don't think you've still got your Trace on you, do you, Harry?"**

"Impossible" Neville Longbottom answered. He was sitting by Hannah Abbott, still fighting the disappointment that his parents were not cured along with the Dead.

**"He can't have," said Ron. "The Trace breaks at seventeen, that's Wizarding law, you can't put it on an adult."**

**"As far as you know," said Hermione. "What if the Death Eaters have found a way to put it on a seventeen-year-old?"**

"But he hasn't been around Death Eaters…" Dean Thomas mumbled to Seamus. The Irish boy shrugged in return.

**"But Harry hasn't been near a Death Eater in the last twenty-four hours. Who's supposed to have put a Trace back on him?"**

**Hermione did not reply. Harry felt contaminated, tainted: Was that really how the Death Eaters had found them?**

"How did they find him, sir?" Cedric Diggory questioned his old headmaster.

"They put a taboo on Voldemort's name." Tonks spat out angrily. "Nearly ambushed the entire order using that."

**"If I can't use magic, and you can't use magic near me, without us giving away our position -" he began.**

**"We're not splitting up!" said Hermione firmly.**

"Noble prat." Ginny said for the second time that day.

**"We need a safe place to hide," said Ron. "Give us time to think things through."**

**"Grimmauld Place," said Harry.**

Sirius groaned and Molly Weasley looked like she just swallowed a lemon. They may have disagreed on many things, but they both hated that place.

**The other two gaped.**

**"Don't be silly, Harry, Snape can get in there!"**

**"Ron's dad said they've put up jinxes against him - and even if they haven't worked," he pressed on as Hermione began to argue "so what? I swear, I'd like nothing better than to meet Snape!"**

"Oh Merlin, he inherited your rivalry!" Lily moaned.

**"But -"**

**"Hermione, where else is there? It's the best chance we've got. Snape's only one Death Eater. If I've still got the Trace on me, we'll have whole crowds of them on us wherever else we go."**

"But it's impossible for him to have the trace on him." Almost everyone who worked for the Ministry mentioned.

**She could not argue, though she looked as if she would have liked to. While she unlocked the café door, Ron clicked the Deluminator**

**"That thing is so cool!" The Weasley twins exclaimed.**

**"Thank you, I designed it myself." Dumbledore replied happily.**

**"Sir, would you be interested in creating a business deal with our store?" George asked in the nicest manner Molly had ever seen him use.**

**Albus chuckled. "Why don't we discuss it after the book?" to release the cafe's light. Then, on Harry's count of three, they reversed the spells upon their three victims, and before the waitress or either of the Death Eaters could do more than stir sleepily, Harry, Ron and Hermione had turned on the spot and vanished into the compressing darkness once more.**

**Seconds later Harry's lungs expanded gratefully and he opened his eyes: They were now standing in the middle of a familiar small and shabby square. Tall, dilapidated houses looked down on them from every side. Number twelve was visible to them, for they had been told of its existence by Dumbledore, its Secret-Keeper, and they rushed toward it, checking every few yards that they were not being followed or observed. They raced up the stone steps, and Harry tapped the front door once with his wand. They heard a series of metallic clicks and the clatter of a chain, then the door swung open with a creak and they hurried over the threshold.**

"Out of everywhere- this had to be the only safe place…" Sirius groaned.

"At least they are safe!" Molly snapped. Sirius was beginning to think that it wasn't just him going stir-crazy that caused them to argue…

**As Harry closed the door behind them, the old-fashioned gas lamps sprang into life, casting flickering light along the length of the hallway. It looked just as Harry remembered it: eerie, cobwebbed, the outlines of the house-elf heads on the wall throwing odd shadows up the staircase. Long dark curtains concealed the portrait of Sirius's mother. The only thing that was out of place was the troll's leg umbrella stand, which was lying on its side as if Tonks had just knocked it over again.**

Anyone who had been in the order with Tonks laughed, while the woman in question blushed.

**"I think somebody's been in here," Hermione whispered, pointing toward it.**

**Many people held their breaths- ****_who?_**

**"That could've happened as the Order left," Ron murmured back.**

**"So where are these jinxes they put up against Snape?" Harry asked.**

**"Maybe they're only activated if he shows up?" suggested Ron.**

**Yet they remained close together on the doormat, backs against the door, scared to move farther into the house.**

**"Well, we can't stay here forever," said Harry, and he took a step forward.**

**"He's a Gryffindor, right?" James interrupted himself.**

**"Can you really expect your son to be anything else?" Lupin replied with a smirk.**

**"Severus Snape?"**

**Mad-Eye Moody's voice whispered out of the darkness, making all three of them jump back in fright. "We're not Snape!" croaked Harry, before something whooshed over him like cold air and his tongue curled backward on itself, making it impossible to speak. Before he had time to feel inside his mouth, however, his tongue had unraveled again.**

**The other two seemed to have experienced the same unpleasant sensation. Ron was making retching noises; Hermione stammered, "That m-must have b-been the T-Tongue-Tying Curse Mad-Eye set up for Snape!"**

"It worked!" Arthur exclaimed, looking relieved.

**Gingerly Harry took another step forward. Something shifted in the shadows at the end of the hall, and before any of them could say another word, a figure had risen up out of the carpet, tall, dust-colored, and terrible; Hermione screamed and so did Mrs. Black, her curtains flying open; the gray figure was gliding toward them, faster and faster, its waist-length hair and beard streaming behind it, its face sunken, fleshless, with empty eye sockets: Horribly familiar, dreadfully altered, it raised a wasted arm, pointing at Harry.**

Everyone eyed Dumbledore, who was now very much alive, and shivered at the image.

**"No!" Harry shouted, and though he had raised his wand no spell occurred to him. "No! It wasn't us! We didn't kill you -"**

**On the word kill, the figure exploded in a great cloud of dust:**

"But what if Snape said the word kill?" Parvati Patil who looked about Harry's age asked.

"Then he would have been free to move about the house." Moody grunted. "but he still couldn't tell anyone about it because of the tongue-tying curse."

**Coughing, his eyes watering, Harry looked around to see Hermione crouched on the floor by the door with her arms over her head, and Ron, who was shaking from head to foot, patting her clumsily on the shoulder and saying, "It's all r-right... It's g-gone..."**

**Dust swirled around Harry like mist, catching the blue gaslight, as Mrs. Black continued to scream.**

**"Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers -"**

"Hey Prongs, you said that you've always wanted to meet my mother."

James glanced at his best friend. "I'm starting to second guess myself, mate."

**"SHUT UP!" Harry bellowed, directing his wand at her, and with a bang and a burst of red sparks, the curtains swung shut again, silencing her.**

Sirius began cheering. A handful of people laughed.

**"That... that was..." Hermione whimpered, as Ron helped her to her feet.**

**"Yeah," said Harry, "but it wasn't really him, was it? Just something to scare Snape."**

**Had it worked, Harry wondered, or had Snape already blasted the horror-figure aside as casually as he had killed the real Dumbledore?**

"Did you think of that while setting it up?" Marlene McKinnon questioned. Moody did not feel the need to answer her.

**Nerves still tingling, he led the other two up the hall, half-expecting some new terror to reveal itself, but nothing moved except for a mouse skittering along the skirting board.**

**"Before we go any farther, I think we'd better check," whispered Hermione, and she raised her wand and said, "Homenum revelio."**

**"At least one of them is thinking straight." Moody growled.**

**"Oh, shut it Moody!" Tonks addressed her former co-auror.**

**"Hm, I guess being a mother didn't make you any softer." Moody stated, before handing a galleon to a happy looking Sirius. "Black won the bet, then."**

**Nothing happened.**

**"Well, you've just had a big shock," said Ron kindly. "What was that supposed to do?"**

Many people snorted.

"Oh Ron…" Ginny shook her head, wondering how her brother could be so thick.

**"It did what I meant it to do!" said Hermione rather crossly. "That was a spell to reveal human presence, and there's nobody here except us!"**

**"Thank Merlin!" Many people, Molly and Lily included, sighed in relief.**

**"And old Dusty," said Ron, glancing at the patch of carpet from which the corpse-figure had risen.**

Fred and George tried to laugh at their brother's attempt at humor, but failed.

**"Let's go up," said Hermione with a frightened look at the same spot, and she led the way up the creaking stairs to the drawing room on the first floor.**

**Hermione waved her wand to ignite the old gas lamps, then, shivering slightly in the drafty room, she perched on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Ron crossed to the window and moved the heavy velvet curtains aside an inch.**

**"Can't see anyone out there," he reported. "And you'd think, if Harry still had a Trace on him, they'd have followed us here. I know they can't get in the house, but - what's up, Harry?"**

"What happened?" Many people asked, alarmed. It was so soon after their last attack- surely they weren't being attacked again, right?

**Harry had given a cry of pain: His scar had burned against as something flashed across his mind like a bright light on water.**

Mad-Eye seemed to relax when he realized it was just the boy's scar- only to be smacked in the head by Tonks for "not caring".

** He saw a large shadow and felt a fury that was not his own pound through his body, violent and brief as an electric shock.**

"What?" James asked, worrying about this abnormality.

"You son has some weird connection to old Voldy." Sirius muttered darkly. "Not too sure why though..."

James felt disgusted. _Having a connection to you parents' murderer?_ It seemed as though his son had the worst luck...

**"What did you see?" Ron asked, advancing on Harry. "Did you see him at my place?"**

**"No, I just felt anger - he's really angry -"**

"He can feel him … Why can he feel him? Why our Harry?" Lily whimpered, quiet enough for only James to hear. He wrapped an arm around his wife to comfort her, although it did little help.

**"But that could be at the Burrow," said Ron loudly. "What else? Didn't you see anything? Was he cursing someone?"**

**"No, I just felt anger ¨C I couldn't tell -"**

**Harry felt badgered, confused, and Hermione did not help as she said in a frightened voice, "Your scar, again? But what's going on? I thought that connection had closed!"**

**"It did, for a while," muttered Harry; his scar was still painful, which made it hard to concentrate. "I - I think it's started opening again whenever he loses control, that's how it used to -"**

**"But then you've got to close your mind!" said Hermione shrilly. "Harry, Dumbledore didn't want you to use that connection, he wanted you to shut it down, that's why you were supposed to use Occlumency!**

"Like Snape really helped with that..." Sirius muttered.

**Otherwise Voldemort can plant false images in your mind, remember -"**

**"Yeah, I do remember, thanks," said Harry through gritted teeth; he did not need Hermione to tell him that Voldemort had once used this selfsame connection between them to lead him into a trap, nor that it had resulted in Sirius's death.**

Many looked saddened at the fact that Harry thought that. Sirius was beginning to wish, not for the first time, that he listened to Dumbledore's orders.

**He wished that he had not told them what he had seen and felt; it made Voldemort more threatening, as though he were pressing against the window of the room, and still the pain in his scar was building and he fought it: It was like resisting the urge to be sick.**

**He turned his back on Ron and Hermione, pretending to examine the old tapestry of the Black family tree on the wall. Then Hermione shrieked: Harry drew his wand again and spun around to see a silver Patronus soar through the drawing room window and land upon the floor in front of them, where it solidified into the weasel that spoke with the voice of Ron's father.**

**"Family safe, do not reply, we are being watched."**

"That Merlin you lot are safe!" Lily smiled weakly at the Weasleys, appreciating how much they care for Harry.

**The Patronus dissolved into nothingness. Ron let out a noise between a whimper and a groan and dropped onto the sofa: Hermione joined him, gripping his arm.**

**"They're all right, they're all right!" she whispered, and Ron half laughed and hugged her.**

**"Harry," he said over Hermione's shoulder, "I -"**

**"It's not a problem," said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. "It's your family, 'course you were worried. I'd feel the same way." He thought of Ginny. "I do feel the same way."**

Many girls cooed at Ginny, who was trying to fight a smile. It was rather adorable when your (ex)boyfriend thought about you while he was on a life-or-death adventure

**The pain in his scar was reaching a peak, burning as it had back in the garden of the Burrow.**

"It burned in the Burrow?" Molly repeated what the book said in shock. How could he have been hurting that badly without her realizing it? She suddenly wondered how much her children went through without her actually knowing... and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

**Faintly he heard Hermione say "I don't want to be on my own. Could we use the sleeping bags I've brought and camp in here tonight?"**

**He heard Ron agree. He could not fight the pain much longer. He had to succumb.**

**"Bathroom," he muttered, and he left the room as fast as he could without running.**

**He barely made it: Bolting the door behind him with trembling hands, he grasped his pounding head and fell to the floor, then in an explosion of agony, he felt the rage that did not belong to him possess his soul, saw a long room lit only by firelight, and the giant blond Death Eater on the floor, screaming and writhing, and a slighter figure standing over him, wand outstretched, while Harry spoke in a high, cold, merciless voice.**

**"More, Rowle, or shall we end it and feed you to Nagini? Lord Voldemort is not sure that he will forgive this time... You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry Potter has escaped again? Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure... Do it, or feel my wrath yourself!"**

Many people shivered and wore looks of disgust, knowing what would happen to Rowle.

**A log fell in the fire: Flames reared, their light darting across a terrified, pointed white face**

"He was terrified?" Almost every Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff who knew Malfoy at school whispered, suddenly wondering if Draco was as evil as some thought. Well, they would find out at his trial in three weeks...

-** with a sense of emerging from deep water, Harry drew heaving breaths and opened his eyes.**

**He was spread-eagled on the cold black marble floor, his nose inches from one of the silver serpent tails that supported the large bathtub. He sat up. Malfoy's gaunt, petrified face seemed burned on the inside of his eyes. Harry felt sickened by what he had seen, by the use to which Draco was now being put by Voldemort.**

**There was a sharp rap on the door, and Harry jumped as Hermione's voice rang out.**

**"Harry, do you want your toothbrush? I've got it here."**

**"Yeah, great, thanks," he said, fighting to keep his voice casual as he stood up to let her in.**

* * *

Please review! I'm going to try to update this two times a week because I want to finish it before summer ends, but I can't promise anything. These chapters take a long time to write!

-Bri


	2. Kreacher's Tale

**I do not own Harry Potter. **

* * *

"Here, Sirius" James tossed the book to his best friend.

"Why do I have to read!?"

"Everyone will." Lily scoffed. "Just get it over with."

"Fine. **Kreacher's Tale**- wait, my Kreacher?!"

"Just read Padfoot!"

**Harry woke early next morning, wrapped in a sleeping bag on the drawing-room floor. A chink of sky was visible between the heavy curtains. It was the cool, clear blue of watered ink, somewhere between night and dawn, and everything was quiet except for Ron and Hermione's slow, deep breathing. Harry glanced over at the dark shapes they made on the floor beside him. Ron had a fit of gallantry and insisted that Hermione sleep on the cushions from the sofa, so that her silhouette was raised above his. Her arm curved to the floor, her fingers inches from Ron's. Harry wondered whether they had fallen asleep holding hands.**

Molly couldn't fight the smile that was creeping onto her face- it seemed that the Weasleys might be having another wedding coming up soon.

**The idea made him feel strangely lonely.**

"I felt lonely too…" Ginny said under her breath, unknown to everyone else. It was hard watching so many of the DA fall in love while Harry was god knows where.

**He looked up at the shadowy ceiling, the cobwebbed chandelier. Less than twenty-four house ago, he had been standing in the sunlight at the entrance to the marquee, waiting to show in wedding guests. It seemed a lifetime away. What was going to happen now? He lay on the floor and he thought of the Horcruxes,**

**"HORCRUXES!?" Sirius dropped the book and stared at his old headmaster. "You sent them to look for Horcruxes? As in, more than one!?"**

**"That's how Voldemort escaped death before. "Dumbledore replied calmly. No one noticed Slughorn become paler. "The only way to defeat him would be to destroy all of them." **

**"Excuse me, but what exactly are horcruxes?"Hannah Abbott asked.**

**"You don't want to know…" Sirius said harshly and continued reading before others had a chance to ask questions.**

**of the daunting complex mission Dumbledore had left him... Dumbledore...**

**The grief that had possessed him since Dumbledore's death felt different now. The accusations he had heard from Muriel at the wedding seemed to have nested in his brain like diseased things, infecting his memories of the wizard he had idolized. **

**Many of the Weasleys snorted. **

**"C'mon Harry, you should know better than to listen to that lunatic!" George laughed. Dumbledore lowered his eyes, suddenly afraid of what everyone would think when they realized Rita Skeeter knew the truth. **

**Could Dumbledore have let such things happen? Had he been like Dudley, content to watch neglect and abuse as long as it did not affect him?**

"He stayed with the Dursleys?" Lily asked in a frightening, soft voice as many people glanced at Albus

"He needed your blood protection…" Remus told her.

James looked like he was ready to murder someone at the mention of "neglect and abuse"

**Could he have turned his back on a sister who was being imprisoned and hidden?**

**"He shouldn't believe a Rita Skeeter rumor, after everything she did to him…" Ginny huffed.**

Albus caught his brother's eye, who was sitting at the table usually occupied by Ravenclaws.

**Harry thought of Godric's Hollow, of graves Dumbledore had never mentioned there; he thought of mysterious objects left without explanation in Dumbledore's will, and resentment swelled in the darkness. Why hadn't Dumbledore told him? **

**"Were you two close, sir?" James interrupted yet again.**

**"Yes, James, we were."**

**Why hadn't he explained? Had Dumbledore actually cared about Harry at all? Or had Harry been nothing more than a tool to be polished and honed, but not trusted, never confided in?**

_"No, Harry, you weren't a tool…."_

**Harry could not stand lying there with nothing but bitter thoughts for company. Desperate for something to do, for distraction, he slipped out of his sleeping bag, picked up his wand, and crept out of the room. On the landing he whispered, "Lumos," and started to climb the stairs by wandlight.**

**On the second landing was the bedroom in which he and Ron had slept last time they had been here; **

**"Why the hell was he at your mother's house!?" **

**"Grimmauld Place served as the temporary headquarters for the Order, Potter." Moody spat. "Now please shut up so we can finish this chapter before nightfall."**

**he glanced into it. The wardrobe doors stood open and the bedclothes had been ripped back. Harry remembered the overturned troll leg downstairs. Somebody had searched the house since the Order had left. Snape? Or perhaps Mundungus, who had pilfered plenty from this house both before and after Sirius died?**

Everyone glanced at Mundungus, who then said defensively, "I ain't the one who left a mess! I'm a good crook!"

The twins snorted. "That's hardly an accomplishment, Dung."

**Harry's gaze wandered to the portrait that sometimes contained Phineas Nigellus Black, Sirius's great-great grandfather, but it was empty, showing nothing but a stretch of muddy backdrop. Phineas Nigellus was evidently spending the night in the headmaster's study at Hogwarts.**

"He's such a git." Sirius interrupted himself, not really talking to anyone in particular.

**Harry continued up the stairs until he reached the topmost landing where there were only two doors. The one facing him bore a nameplate reading Sirius. Harry had never entered his godfather's bedroom before. He pushed open the door, holding his wand high to cast light as widely as possible. The room was spacious and must once have been handsome. There was a large bed with a carved wooden headboard, a tall window obscured by long velvet curtains and a chandelier thickly coated in dust with candle scrubs still resting in its sockets, solid wax banging in frostlike drips. A fine film of dust covered the pictures on the walls and the bed's headboard; a spiders web stretched between the** **chandelier and the top of the large wooden wardrobe, and as Harry moved deeper into the room, he head a scurrying of disturbed mice.**

"You've always been such a neatfreak, Pads." James said sarcastically with a smirk. Sirius wacked him in the head with the book.

**The teenage Sirius had plastered the walls with so many posters and pictures that little of the wall's silvery-gray silk was visible. Harry could only assume that Sirius's parents had been unable to remove the Permanent Sticking Charm that kept them on the wall because he was sure they would not have appreciated their eldest son's taste in decoration. Sirius seemed to have long gone out of his way to annoy his parents.**

The said man smirked.

**There were several large Gryffindor banners, faded scarlet and gold just to underline his difference from all the rest of the Slytherin family. There were many pictures of Muggle motorcycles, and also (Harry had to admire Sirius's nerve) several posters of bikini-clad Muggle girls.**

"Seriously, Sirius?" Molly sighed exasperatedly.

"I'm always Sirius!"

**Harry could tell that they were Muggles because they remained quite stationary within their pictures, faded smiles and glazed eyes frozen on the paper. This was in contrast the only Wizarding photograph on the walls which was a picture of four Hogwarts students standing arm in arm, laughing at the camera.**

Remus, James, and Sirius all caught each other's eye and grinned.

**With a leap of pleasure, Harry recognized his father, his untidy black hair stuck up at the back like Harry's, and he too wore glasses.**

**"He looks just like you Prongs," Remus told his friend. "Except for his eyes. He has Lily's eyes."**

**Beside him was Sirius, carelessly handsome, his slightly arrogant face so much younger and happier than Harry had ever seen it alive.** **To Sirius's right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been.**

Those who knew what Pettigrew did frowned.

**On James's left was Lupin, even then a little shabby-looking, but he had the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included or was it simply because Harry knew how it had been, that he saw these things in the picture? He tried to take it from the wall; it was his now, after all, Sirius had left him everything, but it would not budge. Sirius had taken no chances in preventing his parents from redecorating his room.**

Sirius looked guilty, "Sorry Harry, even I couldn't get it off."

**Harry looked around at the floor. The sky outside was growing brightest. A shaft of light revealed bits of paper, books, and small objects scattered over the carpet. Evidently Sirius's bedroom had been reached too, although its contents seemed to have been judged mostly, if not entirely, worthless. A few of the books had been shaken roughly enough to part company with the covers and sundry pages littered the floor.**

**Harry bent down, picked up a few of the pieces of paper, and examined them. He recognized one as a part of an old edition of A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot, and another as belonging to a motorcycle maintenance manual. The third was handwritten and crumpled. He smoothed it out.**

**Dear Padfoot,**

"It must be from one of us!" Lily motioned to herself, James, and Remus.

**Thank you, thank you, for Harry's birthday present! It was his favorite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased with himself.**

"Oh, he always does that when he's flying." Katie Bell snorted.

"It's from me," Lily stated and leaned forward, wanting to hear Harry's reaction.

**I'm enclosing a picture so you can see. You know it only rises about two feet off the ground but he nearly killed the cat and he smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent me for Christmas (no complaints there). Of course James thought it was so funny,**

"That's because it was!"

Lily smacked her husband.

**says he's going to be a great Quidditch player but we've had to pack away all the ornaments and make sure we don't take our eyes off him when he gets going.**

James interrupted once more, "Is he?"

"He's the best bloody seeker Hogwarts has ever seen!" The outburst came from the most surprising person- Minerva McGonagall. "He made the team in first year!"

"You mean, you let him on the team." Professor Sprout rolled her eyes.

**We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda who has always been sweet to us and who dotes on Harry. We were so sorry you couldn't come, but the Order's got to come first, and Harry's not old enough to know it's his birthday anyway! James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell - also Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much Wormy was here last weekend.**

The Marauders and Lily all looked disgruntled at the mention of the rat.

**I thought he seemed down, but that was probably the next about the McKinnons; I cried all evening when I heard.**

"Thanks, Lils." Marlene smiled at her old roommate in Hogwarts, despite the fact that they have never been _best_ friends.

**Bathilda drops in most days, she's a fascinating old thing with the most amazing stories about Dumbledore.**

**Everyone glanced at Dumbledore again.**

**I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew! I don't know how much to believe, actually because it seems incredible that Dumbledore –**

**Harry's extremities seemed to have gone numb. He stood quite still, holding the miraculous paper in his nerveless fingers while inside him a kind of quiet eruptions sent joy and grief thundering its equal measure through his veins. Lurching to the bed, he sat down.**

Many people smiled sadly.

**He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time, and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her "g"s the same way he did. **

**"He probably got that from Petunia…" Lily whispered to no one in particular.**

**He searched through the letter for every one of them, and each felt like a friendly little wave glimpsed from behind a veil. The letter was an incredible treasure, proof that Lily Potter had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him, Harry, her son.**

Every mother in the room felt their eyes become misty.

**Impatiently brushing away the wetness in his eyes, he reread the letter, this time concentrating on the meaning. It was like listening to a half-remembered voice.** **They had a cat... perhaps it had perished, like his parents at Godric's Hollow... or else fled when there was nobody left to feed it...**

**Sirius had bought him his first broomstick... His parents had known Bathilda Bagshot; had Dumbledore introduced them? Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak... there was something funny there...**

_It's because it's a Hallow_, James thought, although he didn't voice this out loud.

**Harry paused, pondering his mother's words. Why had Dumbledore taken James's Invisibility Cloak? Harry distinctly remembered his headmaster telling him years before, "I don't need a cloak to become invisible" Perhaps some less gifted Order member had needed its assistance, and Dumbledore had acted as a carrier? Harry passed on...**

"But you didn't…." Remus stated, now wondering the reason as well.

**Wormy was here... Pettigrew, the traitor, had seemed "down" had he? Was he aware that he was seeing James and Lily alive for the last time?**

"Most likely, he's a little rat" Moody muttered.

**And finally Bathilda again, who told incredible stories about Dumbledore. It seems incredible that Dumbledore -**

**That Dumbledore what? But there were any number of things that would seem incredible about Dumbledore; that he had once received bottom marks in a Transfiguration test, for instance or had taken up goat charming like Aberforth...**

**"Did he, Abe?" Neville questioned.**

**Aberforth snorted, "No."**

**Harry got to his feet and scanned the floor: Perhaps the rest of the letter was here somewhere. He seized papers, treating them in his eagerness, with as little consideration as the original searcher, he pulled open drawers, shook out books, stood on a chair to run his hand over the top of the wardrobe, and crawled under the bed and armchair.**

**At last, lying face down on the floor, he spotted what looked like a torn piece of paper under the chest of drawers. When he pulled it out, it proved to be most of the photograph that Lily had described in her letter. A black-haired baby was zooming in and out of the picture on a tiny broom, roaring with laughter, and a pair of legs that must have belonged to James was chasing after him.**

Many people cooed.

"But there was more than that to it…"

**Harry tucked the photograph into his pocket with Lily's letter and continued to look for the second sheet.**

**After another quarter of an hour, however he was forced to conclude that the rest of his mother's letter was gone. Had it simply been lost in the sixteen years that had elapsed since it had been written, or had it been taken by whoever had searched the room?**

"What did it say?" Sirius wondered aloud.

Lily shrugged.

**Harry read the first sheet again, this time looking for clues as to what might have made the second sheet valuable. His toy broomstick could hardly be considered interesting to the Death Eaters... The only potentially useful thing he could see her was possible information on Dumbledore. It seems incredible that Dumbledore - what?**

"Exactly …"

**"Harry? Harry? Harry!"**

**"I'm here!" he called, "What's happened?"**

**There was a clatter of footsteps outside the door, and Hermione burst inside.**

**"We woke up and didn't know where you were!" she said breathlessly. She turned and shouted over her shoulder, "Ron! I've found him"**

**Ron's annoyed voice echoed distantly from several floors below.**

**"Good! Tell him from me he's a git!"**

A few people chuckled.

**"Harry don't just disappear, please, we were terrified! Why did you come up here anyway?" She gazed around the ransacked room. "What have you been doing?"**

**"Look what I've just found"**

**He held out his mother's letter. Hermione took it out and read it while Harry watched her. When she reached the end of the page she looked up at him.**

**"Oh Harry..."**

**"And there's this too"**

**He handed her the torn photograph, and Hermione smiled at the baby zooming in and out of sight on the toy broom.**

**"I've been looking for the rest of the letter," Harry said, "but it's not here."**

**Hermione glanced around.**

**"Did you make all this mess, or was some of it done when you got here?"**

**"Someone had searched before me," said Harry.**

**"It was Dung." Sirius smirked, rolling his eyes and feeling slightly relieved. Mundungus looked irritated. **

**"I thought so. Every room I looked into on the way up had been disturbed. What were they after, do you think?"**

**"Information on the Order, if it was Snape."**

**"But you'd think he'd already have all he needed. I mean he was in the Order, wasn't he?"**

"Why was he in the order?" Lily asked through clenched teeth.

"I'm sure it will be explained in the book." Dumbledore told his former student.

**"Well then," said Harry, keen to discuss his theory, "what about information on Dumbledore? The second page of the letter, for instance. You know this Bathilda my mum mentions, you know who she is?"**

**"Who?"**

**"Bathilda Bagshot, the author of -"**

**"A History of Magic," said Hermione, looking interested. "So your parents knew her? She was an incredible magic historian."**

"Of course, that's what Hermione would be interested in." Lavender rolled her eyes

**"And she's still alive," said Harry, "and she lives in Godric's Hollow. Ron's Auntie Muriel was talking about her at the wedding. She knew Dumbledore's family too. Be pretty interesting to talk to, wouldn't she?"**

"Oh, Harry…." Lily sighed softly.

**There was a little too much understanding in the smile Hermione gave him for Harry's liking. He took back the letter and the photograph and tucked them inside the pouch around his neck, so as not to have to look at her and give himself away. "I understand why you'd love to talk to her about your mum and dad, and Dumbledore too," said Hermione. "But that wouldn't really help us in our search for the Horcruxes, would it?" Harry did not answer, and she rushed on, "Harry, I know you really want to go to Godric's Hollow, but I'm scared. I'm scared at how easily those Death Eaters found us yesterday. It just makes me feel more than ever that we ought to avoid the place where your parents are buried, I'm sure they'd be expecting you to visit it."**

"Would the Death Eaters really be smart enough?"

**"It's not just that," Harry said, still avoiding looking at her, "Muriel said stuff about Dumbledore at the wedding. I want to know the truth..."**

**He told Hermione everything that Muriel had told him. When he had finished, Hermione said, "Of course, I can see why that's upset you, Harry -"**

**"I'm not upset," he lied, "I'd just like to know whether or not it's true or -"**

**"Harry do you really think you'll get the truth from a malicious old woman like Muriel, or from Rita Skeeter? **

** "That's what I said!"**

**How can you believe them? You knew Dumbledore!"**

**"I thought I did," he muttered.**

_He does now…_ Dumbledore thought.

**"But you know how much truth there was in everything Rita wrote about you! Doge is right, how can you let these people tarnish your memories of Dumbledore?"**

**He looked away, trying not to betray the resentment he felt. There it was again: Choose what to believe. He wanted the truth. Why was everybody so determined that he should not get it?**

**"Shall we go down to the kitchen?" Hermione suggested after a little pause. "Find something for breakfast?"**

**Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black**

**Excitement trickled through Harry, but he was not immediately sure why.**

**"Why the bloody hell would he be excited about my brother!?"**

** He read the sign again. Hermione was already a flight of stairs below him.**

**"Hermione," he said, and he was surprised that his voice was so calm. "Come back up here."**

**"What's the matter?"**

**"R.A.B. I think I've found him."**

Dumbledore now looked as confused as everybody else. _How do they know that R.A.B has to do with the task?_ He didn't remember anything about Regulus or an R.A.B. in any of the memories.

**There was a gasp, and then Hermione ran back up the stairs.**

**"In your mum's letter? But I didn't see -"**

**Harry shook his head, pointing at Regulus's sign. She read it, then clutched Harry's arm so tightly that he winced.**

**"Sirius's brother?" she whispered.**

**"He was a Death Eater," said Harry. "Sirius told me about him, he joined up when he was really young and then got cold feet and tried to leave - so they killed him."**

**"That fits!" gasped Hermione. "If he was a Death Eater he had access to Voldemort, and if he became disenchanted, then he would have wanted to bring Voldemort down!"**

**"Reg wanted to bring Voldemort down?" **

**She released Harry, leaned over the banister, and screamed, "Ron! RON! Get up here, quick!"**

**Ron appeared, panting, a minute later, his wand ready in his hand.**

**"What's up? If it's massive spiders again I want breakfast before I -"**

**"Again?" Molly questioned, although most ignored her.**

**He frowned at the sign on Regulus's door, in which Hermione was silently pointing.**

**"What? That was Sirius's brother, wasn't it? Regulus Arcturus ... Regulus ... R.A.B.! The locket - you don't reckon -?"**

Dumbledore was now truly lost. _Didn't they already have the locket?_

**"Let's find out," said Harry. He pushed the door: It was locked. Hermione pointed her wand at the handle and said, "Alohamora." There was a click, and the door swung open.**

**They moved over the threshold together, gazing around. Regulus's bedroom was slightly smaller than Sirius's, though it had the same sense of former grandeur. Whereas Sirius had sought to advertise his diffidence from the rest of the family, Regulus had striven to emphasize the opposite.**

**The Slytherin colors of emerald and silver were everywhere, draping the bed, the walls, and the windows. The Black family crest was painstakingly painted over the bed, along with its motto, TOUJOURS PUR. Beneath this was a collection of yellow newspaper cuttings, all stuck together to make a ragged collage. Hermione crossed the room to examine them.**

**"They're all about Voldemort," she said. "Regulus seems to have been a fan for a few years before he joined the Death Eaters ..."**

**A little puff of dust rose from the bedcovers as she sat down to read the clippings. Harry, meanwhile, had noticed another photograph: a Hogwarts Quidditch team was smiling and waving out of the frame. He moved closer and saw the snakes emblazoned on their chests: Slytherins. Regulus was instantly recognizable as the boy sitting in the middle of the front row: He had the same dark hair and slightly haughty look of his brother, though he was smaller, slighter, and rather less handsome than Sirius had been.**

"Thank you, Harry!" Sirius beamed with a smirk on his face.

**"He played Seeker," said Harry.**

**Many snorted at the fact that Harry would dwell on that detail.**

**"What?" said Hermione vaguely; she was still immersed in Voldemort's press clippings.**

**"He's sitting in the middle of the front row, that's where the Seeker ... Never mind," said Harry, realizing that nobody was listening.**

**Ron was on his hands and knees, searching under the wardrobe. Harry looked around the room for likely hiding places and approached the desk. Yet again, somebody had searched before them. The drawers' contents had been turned over recently, the dust disturbed, but there was nothing of value there: old quills, out-of-date textbooks that bore evidence of being roughly handled, a recently smashed ink bottle, its sticky residue covering the contents of the drawer.**

**"There's an easier way," said Hermione, as Harry wiped his inky fingers on his jeans. She raised her wand and said, "Accio Locket!"**

**Nothing happened. Ron, who had been searching the folds of the faded curtains, looked disappointed.**

"Well, everyone knows that people _love_ to hide treasured goods in the curtains!" Fred told everyone loudly.

"Damn it, Forge! Why'd you give away my best hiding spot?"

**"Is that it, then? It's not here?"**

**"Oh, it could still be here, but under counter-enchantments," said Hermione. "Charms to prevent it from being summoned magically, you know."**

**"Like Voldemort put on the stone basin in the cave," said Harry, remembering how he had been unable to Summon the fake locket.**

Dumbledore paled. _Months of hard work only to have the locket be a fake…_

"Is the locket a horcrux?" Sirius asked. The old man nodded. "So he… He died trying to kill Voldemort…"

"What is a horcrux!?"

"An object you trap a piece of your soul in to keep you from dying." Sirius replied darkly, and went back to reading.

**"How are we supposed to find it then?" asked Ron.**

**"We search manually," said Hermione.**

**"That's a good idea," said Ron, rolling his eyes, and he resumed his examination of the curtains.**

**They combed every inch of the room for more than an hour, but were forced, finally, to conclude that the locket was not there.**

**Bill paled. "There was a locket in the drawing room…."**

**"…And we threw it away…" Remus finished for him. "_Shit."_**

**The sun had risen now; its light dazzled them even through the grimy landing windows.**

**"It could be somewhere else in the house, though," said Hermione in a rallying tone as they walked back downstairs. As Harry and Ron had become more discouraged, she seemed to have become more determined. "Whether he'd manage to destroy it or not, he'd want to keep it hidden from Voldemort, wouldn't he? Remember all those awful things we had to get rid of when we were here last time? That clock that shot bolts at everyone and those old robes that tried to strangle Ron; Regulus might have put them there to protect the locket's hiding place, even though we didn't realize it at ... at ..."**

**Harry and Ron looked at her. She was standing with one foot in midair, with the dumbstruck look of one who had just been Obliviated: her eyes had even drifted out of focus.**

"She realizes that we handled it."

**"... at the time," she finished in a whisper.**

**"Something wrong?" asked Ron.**

**"There was a locket."**

**"What?" said Harry and Ron together.**

**"In the cabinet in the drawing room. Nobody could open it. And we ... we ..."**

**Harry felt as though a brick had slid down through his chest into his stomach. He remembered. He had even handled the thing as they passed it around, each trying in turn to pry it open.**

A few shuddered at the thought of touching a piece of Voldemort's soul.

**It had been tossed into a sack of rubbish, along with the snuffbox of Wartcap powder and the music box that had made everyone sleepy ...**

**"Kreacher nicked loads of things back from us," said Harry. It was the only chance, the only slender hope left to them, and he was going to cling to it until forced to let go. "He had a whole stash of stuff in his cupboard in the kitchen. C'mon."**

"He better have!"

Mundungus shrunk in his seat.

**He ran down the stairs taking two steps at a time, the other two thundering along in his wake. They made so much noise that they woke the portrait of Sirius's mother as they passed through the hall.**

**"Filth! Mudbloods! Scum!" she screamed after them as they dashed down into the basement kitchen and slammed the door behind them. Harry ran the length of the room, skidded to a halt at the door of Kreacher's cupboard, and wrenched it open. There was the nest of dirty old blankets in which the house-elf had once slept, but they were not longer glittering with the trinkets Kreacher had salvaged. The only thing there was an old copy of Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. Refusing to believe his eyes, Harry snatched up the blankets and shook them. A dead mouse fell out and rolled dismally across the floor. Ron groaned as he threw himself into a kitchen chair; Hermione closed her eyes.**

"Nooo!" Many people moaned.

**"It's not over yet," said Harry, and he raised his voice and called, "Kreacher!"**

**There was a loud crack and the house elf that Harry had so reluctantly inherited from Sirius appeared out of nowhere in front of the cold and empty fireplace: tiny, half human-sized, his pale skin hanging off him in folds, white hair sprouting copiously from his batlike ears. He was still wearing the filthy rag in which they had first met him, and the contemptuous look he bent upon Harry showed that his attitude to his change of ownership had altered no more than his outfit.**

**"Master," croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog's voice, and he bowed low; muttering to his knees, "back in my Mistress's old house with the blood-traitor Weasley and the Mudblood -"**

**"I forbid you to call anyone 'blood traitor' or 'Mudblood,'" growled Harry. He would have found Kreacher, with his snoutlike nose and bloodshot eyes, a distinctively unlovable object even if the elf had not betrayed Sirius to Voldemort.**

"I hate that elf so bloody much now…" James grumbled.

**"I've got a question for you," said Harry, his heart beating rather fast as he looked down at the elf, "and I order you to answer it truthfully. Understand?"**

"Good man, no loopholes" Moody said.

**"Yes, Master," said Kreacher, bowing low again. Harry saw his lips moving soundlessly, undoubtedly framing the insults he was now forbidden to utter.**

**"Two years ago," said Harry, his heart now hammering against his ribs, "there was a big gold locket in the drawing room upstairs. We threw it out. Did you steal it back?"**

**There was a moment's silence, during which Kreacher straightened up to look Harry full in the face. Then he said, "Yes."**

**"Where is it now?" asked Harry jubilantly as Ron and Hermione looked gleeful.**

**Kreacher closed his eyes as though he could not bear to see their reactions to his next word.**

**"Gone."**

"Where did it go?" Molly wondered out loud, looking worried.

**"Gone?" echoed Harry, elation floating out of him, "What do you mean, it's gone?"**

**The elf shivered. He swayed.**

**"Kreacher," said Harry fiercely, "I order you -"**

**"Mundungus Fletcher,"**

**"DUNG!" Sirius dropped the book and flung himself over the table to the man sitting on the other side. Remus picked up the book and continued reading.**

** croaked the elf, his eyes still tight shut. "Mundungus Fletcher stole it all; Miss Bella's and Miss Cissy's pictures, my Mistress's gloves, the Order of Merlin, First Class, the goblets with the family crest, and - and -"**

**Kreacher was gulping for air: His hollow chest was rising and falling rapidly, then his eyes flew open and he uttered a bloodcurdling scream.**

"It sounds like he's going to beat himself up soon." James commented.

"Bloody elf deserves it." Sirius replied, now sitting back down in his spot.

**"- and the locket, Master Regulus's locket. Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed in his orders!"**

"What orders?" Sirius urged Remus to read faster.

**Harry reacted instinctively: As Kreacher lunged for the poker standing in the grate, he launched himself upon the elf, flattening him. Hermione's scream mingled with Kreacher's but Harry bellowed louder than both of them: "Kreacher, I order you to stay still!"**

"Oh Merlin, he got your love of House elves, Lily." James rolled his eyes.

"More like Hemione's." Ginny snorted, remembering how the girl pushed SPEW.

**He felt the elf freeze and released him. Kreacher lay flat on the cold stone floor, tears gushing from his sagging eyes.**

**"Harry, let him up!" Hermione whispered.**

**"So he can beat himself up with the poker?" snorted Harry, kneeling beside the elf. "I don't think so. Right. Kreacher, I want the truth: How do you know Mundungus Fletcher stole the locket?"**

**"Kreacher saw him!" gasped the elf as tears poured over his snout and into his mouth full of graying teeth. "Kreacher saw him coming out of Kreacher's cupboard with his hands full of Kreacher's treasures. Kreacher told the sneak thief to stop, but Mundungus Fletcher laughed and r-ran ..."**

**"You called the locket 'Master Regulus's,'" said Harry. "Why? Where did it come from? What did Regulus have to do with it? Kreacher, sit up and tell me everything you know about that locket, and everything Regulus had to do with it!"**

"No one interrupt this!" Sirius shouted, despite the fact that he was one of the ones who was usually talking.

**The elf sat up, curled into a ball, placed his wet face between his knees, and began to rock backward and forward. When he spoke, his voice was muffled but quite distinct in the silent, echoing kitchen.**

**"Master Sirius ran away, good riddance, for he was a bad boy and broke my Mistress's heart with his lawless ways.** **But Master Regulus had proper order; he knew what was due to the name of Black and the dignity of his pure blood. For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns ... and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so happy to serve ...**

**And one day, a year after he joined, Master Regulus came down to the kitchen to see Kreacher. Master Regulus always liked Kreacher. And Master Regulus said ... he said ..."**

**The old elf rocked faster than ever.**

**"... he said that the Dark Lord required an elf."**

Everyone looked a little puzzled, "Why?"

**"Voldemort needed an elf?" Harry repeated, looking around at Ron and Hermione, who looked just as puzzled as he did.**

**"Oh yes," moaned Kreacher. "And Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. It was an honor, said Master Regulus, an honor for him and for Kreacher, who must be sure to do whatever the Dark Lord ordered him to do ... and then to c-come home."**

**Kreacher rocked still faster, his breath coming in sobs.**

**"So Kreacher went to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord did not tell Kreacher what they were to do, but took Kreacher with him to a cave beside the sea. And beyond the cave was a cavern, and in the cavern was a great black lake ..."**

**The hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood up. Kreacher's croaking voice seemed to come to him from across the dark water. He saw what had happened as clearly as though he had been present.**

**"... There was a boat ..."**

**Of course there had been a boat; Harry knew the boat, ghostly green and tiny, bewitched so as to carry one wizard and one victim toward the island in the center. This, then, was how Voldemort had tested the defenses surrounding the Horcrux, by borrowing a disposable creature, a house-elf...**

**"There was a b-basin full of potion on the island. The D-Dark Lord made Kreacher drink it ..."**

**The elf quaked from head to foot.**

**"Kreacher drank, and as he drank he saw terrible thing **

Dumbledore closed his eyes as he thought of the things he saw while drinking the potion.

**... Kreacher's insides burned ... Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed ... He made Kreacher drink all the potion ... He dropped a locket into the empty basin ... He filled it with more potion."**

**"And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island ..."**

**Harry could see it happening. He watched Voldemort's white, snakelike face vanishing into darkness, those red eyes fixed pitilessly on the thrashing elf whose death would occur within minutes, whenever he succumbed to the desperate thirst that the burning poison caused its victim ... But here, Harry's imagination could go no further, for he could not see how Kreacher had escaped.**

**"Kreacher needed water, he crawled to the island's edge and he drank from the black lake ... and hands, dead hands, came out of the water and dragged Kreacher under the surface ..."**

"Inferi" Someone croaked.

**"How did you get away?" Harry asked, and he was not surprised to hear himself whispering.**

**Kreacher raised his ugly head and looked Harry with his great, bloodshot eyes.**

**"Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back," he said.**

**"I know - but how did you escape the Inferi?"**

**Kreacher did not seem to understand.**

**"Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back," he repeated.**

**"I know, but -"**

**"Well, it's obvious, isn't it, Harry?" said Ron. "He Disapparated!"**

**"But ... you couldn't Apparate in and out of that cave," said Harry, "otherwise Dumbledore -"**

James paled. What the hell did his son do during his time at Hogwarts? When James was there all he had to worry about was girls and NEWTS….

**"Elf magic isn't like wizard's magic, is it?" said Ron, "I mean, they can Apparate and Disapparate in and out of Hogwarts when we can't."**

**There was a silence as Harry digested this. How could Voldemort have made such a mistake? But even as he thought this, Hermione spoke, and her voice was icy.**

**"Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice ... It would never have occurred to him that they might have magic that he didn't."**

**"The house-elf's highest law is his Master's bidding," intoned Kreacher. "Kreacher was told to come home, so Kreacher came home ..."**

**"Well, then, you did what you were told, didn't you?" said Hermione kindly. "You didn't disobey orders at all!"**

**Kreacher shook his head, rocking as fast as ever.**

**"So what happened when you got back?" Harry asked. "What did Regulus say when you told him what happened?"**

**"Master Regulus was very worried, very worried," croaked Kreacher. "Master Regulus told Kreacher to stay hidden and not to leave the house. And then ... it was a little while later ... Master Regulus came to find Kreacher in his cupboard one night, and Master Regulus was strange, not as he usually was, disturbed in his mind, Kreacher could tell ...**

Sirius leaned in more, as though that would make the information known quicker.

**and he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreacher had gone with the Dark Lord ..."**

Sirius paled, obviously realizing what happened. "_Fuck."_

**And so they had set off. Harry could visualize them quite clearly, the frightened old elf and the thin, dark Seeker who had so resembled Sirius ... Kreacher knew how to open the concealed entrance to the underground cavern, knew how to raise the tiny boat: this time it was his beloved Regulus who sailed with him to the island with its basin of poison ...**

**"And he made you drink the poison?" said Harry, disgusted.**

**But Kreacher shook his head and wept. Hermione's hands leapt to her mouth: She seemed to have understood something.**

The older Black brother felt a lump in his throat and burning at the back of his eyes.

**"M-Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord had," said Kreacher, tears pouring down either side of his snoutlike nose. "And he told Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets ..."**

**Kreacher's sobs came in great rasps now; Harry had to concentrate hard to understand him.**

**"And he order - Kreacher to leave - without him. And he told Kreacher - to go home - and never to tell my Mistress - what he had done - but to destroy - the first locket. And he drank - all the potion - and Kreacher swapped the lockets - and watched ... as Master Regulus ... was dragged beneath the water ... and ..."**

**"Oh, Kreacher!" wailed Hermione, who was crying. **

**Many others in the room were as well. **

**She dropped to her knees beside the elf and tried to hug him. At once he was on his feet, cringing away from her, quite obviously repulsed.**

**"The Mudblood touched Kreacher, he will not allow it, what would his Mistress say?"**

**"I told you not to call her 'Mudblood'!" snarled Harry, but the elf was already punishing himself. He fell to the ground and banged his forehead on the floor.**

**"Stop him - stop him!" Hermione cried. "Oh, don't you see now how sick it is, the way they've got to obey?"**

"Exactly" Lily agreed quietly.

**"Kreacher - stop, stop!" shouted Harry.**

**The elf lay on the floor, panting and shivering, green mucus glistening around his snot, a bruise already blooming on his pallid forehead where he had struck himself, his eyes swollen and bloodshot and swimming in tears. Harry had never seen anything so pitiful.**

**"So you brought the locket home," he said relentlessly, for he was determined to know the full story. "And you tried to destroy it?"**

**"Nothing Kreacher did made any mark upon it," moaned the elf. "Kreacher tried everything, everything he knew, but nothing, nothing would work ... So many powerful spells upon the casing, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to get inside it, but it would not open ... Kreacher punished himself, he tried again, he punished himself, he tried again. Kreacher failed to obey orders, Kreacher could not destroy the locket! And his mistress was mad with grief, because Master Regulus had disappeared and Kreacher could not tell her what had happened, no, because Master Regulus had f-f-forbidden him to tell any of the f-f-family what happened in the c-cave ..."**

**Kreacher began to sob so hard that there were no more coherent words. Tears flowed down Hermione's cheeks as she watched Kreacher, but she did not dare touch him again. Even Ron, who was no fan of Kreacher's, looked troubled. Harry sat back on his heels and shook his head, trying to clear it.**

**"I don't understand you, Kreacher," he said finally. "Voldemort tried to kill you, Regulus died to bring Voldemort down, but you were still happy to betray Sirius to Voldemort? You were happy to go to Narcissa and Bellatrix, and pass information to Voldemort through them ..."**

**"Harry, Kreacher doesn't think like that," said Hermione, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.**

Sirius blinked. _So Dumbledore was right when he said I should have been nicer…_

**"He's a slave; house-elves are used to bad, even brutal treatment; what Voldemort did to Kreacher wasn't that far out of the common way. What do wizard wars mean to an elf like Kreacher? He's loyal to people who are kind to him, and Mrs. Black must have been, and Regulus certainly was, so he served them willingly and parroted their beliefs. I know what you're going to say," she went on as Harry began to protest, "that Regulus changed his mind ... but he doesn't seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus's family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all."**

**"Sirius -"**

**"Sirius was horrible to Kreacher, Harry, and it's no good looking like that, you know it's true. Kreacher had been alone for such a long time when Sirius came to live here, and he was probably starving for a bit of affection. I'm sure 'Miss Cissy' and 'Miss Bella' were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he turned up, so he did them a favor and told them everything they wanted to know. I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did ... and so did Sirius."**

**Harry had no retort. As he watched Kreacher sobbing on the floor, he remembered what Dumbledore had said to him, mere hours after Sirius's death: I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's ...**

"I didn't"

**"Kreacher," said Harry after a while, "when you feel up to it, er ... please sit up."**

**It was several minutes before Kreacher hiccupped himself into silence. Then he pushed himself into a sitting position again, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes like a small child.**

**"Kreacher, I am going to ask you to do something," said Harry. He glanced at Hermione for assistance. He wanted to give the order kindly, but at the same time, he could not pretend that it was not an order. However, the change in his tone seemed to have gained her approval: She smiled encouragingly.**

Dumbledore smiled encouragingly as well.

**"Kreacher, I want you, please, to go and find Mundungus Fletcher. We need to find out where the locket - where Master Regulus's locket it. It's really important. We want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to - er - ensure that he didn't die in vain."**

**Kreacher dropped his fists and looked up at Harry.**

**"Find Mundungus Fletcher?" he croaked.**

**"And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place," said Harry. "Do you think you could do that for us?"**

**As Kreacher nodded and got to his feet, Harry had a sudden inspiration. He pulled out Hagrid's purse and took out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus had placed the note to Voldemort.**

**"Kreacher, I'd, er, like you to have this," he said, pressing the locket into the elf's hand. "This belonged to Regulus and I'm sure he'd want you to have it as a token of gratitude for what you -"**

"That's gonna kill him."

**"Overkill, mate," said Ron as the elf took one look at the locket, let out a howl of shock and misery, and threw himself back onto the ground.**

"See." Seamus looked smug

"No one disagreed with you." Dean rolled his eyes.

**It took them nearly half an hour to calm down Kreacher, who was so overcome to be presented with a Black family heirloom for his very own that he was too weak at the knees to stand properly. When finally he was able to totter a few steps they all accompanied him to his cupboard, watched him tuck up the locket safely in his dirty blankets, and assured him that they would make its protection their first priority while he was away. He then made two low bows to Harry and Ron, and even gave a funny little spasm in Hermione's direction that might have been an attempt at a respectful salute, before Disapparating with the usual loud crack.**

**"Wow…" Sirius croaked, with his head now in his hands. **

**"I'll read the next chapter too, if no one minds…" Remus announced and then. turned the page.**

* * *

Please review! I'm going to try to update this two times a week because I want to finish it before summer ends, but I can't promise anything. These chapters take a long time to write!

-Bri


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